Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Superman... a Methodist? Batman an Episcopalian? Holy WCC!

[NOTE: due to the vagaries of my Blogger template, and my inability to navigate them fully, I had to make some of the pictures illegibly small. Click on them, and you'll be taken to the source site, where they can be better read.]

Wow... "holy" and "WCC" so don't go together....

A dear friend (Terry Rose) just sent me a link to a page called The Religious Affiliation of Comic Book Characters. It's a quite-serious look at the world of superheroes, super-villains, and the other ink-and-pen creations kids have been devouring for decades.

I was quite the aficionado in the 1960's, but have long-since stopped following comic books, except when they're turned into movies. This page takes a pretty serious approach to identifying and documenting the implicit and explicit religious leanings of the characters in the Marvel, DC and other comic universes.

You'll find out that Superman is a Methodist, Batman is Episcopalian/Roman Catholic, the Fantastic Four's The Thing is Jewish, and that God's religion is described as... God.

You who've kept up on comics will have more intelligent observations on this than I have. I'll say this, though: the page depicts a much better-balanced and "real" world than TV or the movies. From those media, you'd assume that virtually no good person seriously practices any identifiable religion. For instance, I've made this observation about one of the most otherwise creative minds in Hollywood, Joss Whedon:

...Whedon has evidently never known, liked and understood a real-live, practicing, Bible-believing Christian. He shares that with most Hollywood writers, sadly. Whedon can create believable murderers, maniacs, flawed heroes, monsters, in-betweeners, and a hundred other types. But he seems unable or unwilling to create a credible, likable, genuine, openly Christian character -- let alone create one and go anywhere with that character.
Contrast that with history, and the real world inhabited by most of us outside of Hollywood.


Funny, isn't it? Comic books being more real than live-action media?

5 comments:

Nephos said...

In a related story, the Joker has recently joined Joel Osteen's congregation in Houston.

DJP said...

So, he's left the "Toronto Blessing" "laughing in the 'Spirit'" movement?

< rimshot >

candy said...

Actually, the Joker didn't leave the "Toronto Blessing" movement, he just went to Texas to recruit more people for "Joel's Army."

Chris Anderson said...

The Joker is Joel Osteen? Did I read that right?

Boy, this thread could get out of hand in a hurry. :)

Jeremy Weaver said...

That's an awesome site! It reminds me of a wasted childhood. Both mine and whoever compiled all of that stuff.